


Part of Your Parade

by AliLamba



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ground AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliLamba/pseuds/AliLamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ground AU: if the Ark had stayed in space, if the flares had not been sent, if the 100 had to make their own civilization, this is how they would survive, and this is how Bellamy Blake would love her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. just want to fight like everyone else

 

It was an abrupt realization built on months of observation.

At some point Bellamy’s feelings of attachment, protection, and allegiance to Clarke Griffin had trespassed into devotion.

Quite simply, he loves her.

He realizes it twice in close succession. Once, while he’s lost in thought and staring at her from halfway across camp. She had chastised him for keeping a guard close to her around the clock, and had provided no fewer than seven perfectly logical reasons why she did not require a protective shadow. But their argument still bothers him, even though he had acquiesced in the end.

“Dude,” Murphy is saying, dejectedly poking at the campfire for warmth. Kicked off guard duty, he suddenly has nothing better to do. “Quit staring. She said no.”

“I heard her,” Bellamy snaps, not entirely opposed to a fight.

Murphy purses his lips, probably not opposed either. “Then why do you care so much?”

And maybe it’s because Murphy sounds so petulant when he says it, or the fact that Murphy’s overlarge eyes sometimes make him look so like a child. But Bellamy hears an eight-year-old version of his friend in his head, because an eight-year-old version of him would then taunt: _It’s not like you love her._

And it’s enough for him to realize just how strong his feelings are. He doesn’t want her safe merely because she is their leader.

He…he cares. Personally, he is invested in whether she breathes or not.

Breathing in that moment is difficult for Bellamy Blake, because he is fighting with feelings of indignant denial. He doesn’t _love_ Clarke Griffin. They are friends, and caring about whether she is alive is not the same thing as being in love with someone.

…But, _how?_ How is it different?

Bellamy stares into the fire.

He loves his sister. He loved his mother. Those are undeniable, indisputable facts. He can’t describe those loves, but he knows that thinking about how he feels, or thinking about their mortality is like trying to conceptualize the vastness of space. It is a limitless reality, unknowably infinite, the way he loves his family, and thinking about it leads only to more befuddlement because surely there is a limit… _to space_ …just like there is a limit to what he would do to protect his sister…his mother…and Clarke.

Bellamy glances back at her, finding her talking animatedly with someone else. His mood sours, because she looks happy, and just a few minutes ago she was making him feel like an idiot.

He doubts that’s how he feels about their assumed leader. There may or may not be something more than polite duty to their people in wanting to keep her alive, but…no. She is just Clarke Griffin, and she is princess to all of them.

.

Then there is the second time, not two days after the first.

He is woken by what he feared.

_They took her, they took Clarke--_

He wakes up the way someone snaps dry kindling.

Panic doesn’t make him careful. He grabs his gun and pushes past Miller into the dusk. There are people around his tent looking for direction but he doesn’t direct them, because he’s been waiting for this to happen – he’s known this day would come – and he runs right past them all.

It is sprinting through the woods like a madman. He can hear her screaming, and his heart won’t slow down, he is such a wreck trying not to think about what if – what if she’s gone, gone before he could tell her, gone before he could even start to know what it feels like to love someone like her. His blood is filling his ears when he catches up with them, his voice is shredded and inhuman when he screams at them to stop.

.

He knows the vastness of his feelings on the way down. Not physically – not falling with gravity, which he does after – but mentally and biomechanically coming down. The Grounder had a knife to Clarke’s throat and that Grounder is since dead while Clarke is gasping on the ground like a fish trying to find water in the air.

He feels like chaos on the inside, his nerves shot from the effort of running across a forest after her, from seeing her panicked and terrified believing that death was a muscle’s twitch away. It had come down to a bullet that worked and aim he didn’t think he had, and later they’ll examine the corpse together and wonder how he made the shot at all, because it goes in through the eye and out through the back of his skull. Clarke has the man’s blood on her, but she is alive, and they will burn the man later.

And his heart is thumping so hard against his ribcage when he slumps on the ground in front of her, opening his arms so that she can crawl into them to find safety, that he realizes how much she means to him. He realizes how much he loves her, because thinking about how scared he is is like the first time he looked outside a window on the Ark, realizing he had no idea how or when the black ended.

It is one more terrifying realization to add to the scattered spray of his thoughts, and for the moment he ignores it in favor of burying his nose in her hair and squeezing her body against his to convince himself she breathes.

.


	2. walk with everyone else

 

 

Things change after this. Not only does Clarke allow for the presence of an armed guard within shouting distance, but Bellamy takes night shift. Every night.

She whines every night that he shouldn’t be there, that it’s cold and he should be sleeping, but he ignores her because keeping her safe is so much more important.

And then once, when she’s looking particularly pretty, and when all of his best people are on patrol and curfew has been more or less enforced, he allows her to invite him into her bed.

“I won’t bite, you know.”

She’s holding up her blanket as if to show him there aren’t any traps.

“Yeah well maybe I will.”

She raises her eyebrows at him, shocked and impressed, and Bellamy realizes he’s dropped his guard halfway. He’s tired. “No.” He shakes his head and looks away. “No, it’s not safe. I’m staying here.”

“Bellamy,” she scolds, in the voice that reveals she thinks he’s being unreasonable and illogical. “How better to know whether I’m alive then right next to me. No one could be closer to me, and you won’t freeze to death like you will at my door.”

“I’m not cold.”

“Yeah. You haven’t been pretending not to shiver for the last twenty minutes either.”

 _Shit._ He thought she’d been reading.

“All I’m saying is…I’m pretty sure you being alive is paramount to you supposedly keeping me alive.”

He wonders if a month ago he would have been able to say no. He wonders when everything began to change. Because now when he looks into her eyes and sees them lit from the embers of firelight still burning on the other side of her tent, he senses it again: the overwhelming nature of that endless abyss. He would do anything to protect this woman. So he puts his gun beside the bed and steps over it, and into the enclave of warmth she kept for him.

“Your shoes are getting my bed dirty,” she complains.

“Yeah well my shoes are staying on.” Bellamy still feels tightly wound, like his whole body is now the gun, bullet, and trigger – if she touches him...

He can practically hear her roll her eyes, but she settles in on her side of the bed. It’s barely bigger than the typical bunk back on the Ark and not particularly designed for two people. But they make it work, and the tiny sliver of air between them beneath the blanket is enough space to feel as though he is actually doing his job.

She was right, of course. From this vantage point he merely has to look up to have a good enough visual field. Security settled, he’s allowed to spend all night questioning why, and how, and when this woman next to him became such a fixture in his heart and mind. She’s insufferably stubborn, for one. She doesn’t listen to him for another. He’d very much like to lie next to her the rest of his life.

All three questions get no definitive answer, just like he cannot think of a good reason to tell her he loves her besides selfishness and greed. Watching her upturned shoulder rise and fall with her sleeping breaths, he wonders what could ever come of their relationship. She doesn’t love him. She barely tolerates him. Everyone had known of how dearly Clarke had loved Finn, and with him dead she can only love him more. Hell, he’d even mocked Wells himself for trying to get in the way of that love story.

With Finn gone…even months after the fact…

Clarke inhales a deep breath and turns until she faces Bellamy. He doesn’t breathe until he is sure she still sleeps, because it is not his job to wake her.

Unfortunately, though: now he has the liberty to examine her face, which is not something he should be doing.

Bellamy presses his lips together and resolutely turns his attention to the roof of Clarke’s tent. Winter is coming, and there are enough other things to think about.

.

The next night it is not so cold, but again she insists he share her blanket. They go back and forth trying to guess the precise degree of the weather before he gives in. And even though she’s won she still finds something to complain about: “Your jacket is too noisy.”

“Yeah well this whole damn camp is noisy.”

She giggles, and he wonders if he’s said something funny.

“Fine, don’t take off the coat,” she relents. “At least you took off your shoes tonight.”

.

Five nights later he wakes with a start. It’s quiet, and it’s dark, and there’s nothing obvious – no Grounder in the tent, for instance – to wake him. Bellamy strains his ears, lifting his head off the pillow to figure out what woke him; he’s sure the muted, distant voices are of Miller and Colby, who are on watch by the gate and who never shut up. Their casual conversation calms him.

If it’s not imminent danger, then it’s…

Oh.

Bellamy tips his chin down, finding the top of Clarke’s head resting on his chest. Her hand is carefully tucked across his abdomen, and one of her legs overlaps his.

Falling asleep has woken him up.

Judging by the casual nature of their entwined bodies, he guesses he’s been asleep for awhile. Bellamy looks toward the door, ignoring the jacket and boots folded carefully beside the bed.

Bellamy swallows against a dry, scratchy throat. His heart is sinking, and he feels the sting of sorrow. He knows this is too much, that they’ve finally crossed into territory too close to intimacy. His exposed face is so cold. He’s sure she turned to him mostly for warmth, just like he’s sure he let her because his heart had wanted it. Bellamy stops breathing to take the measure of Clarke’s. She is clearly deep into a restful sleep, and already he regrets that he’ll have to break that peace.

The temperatures are still dropping, and there is still no consensus about what to. If Clarke wasn’t in mortal peril they might all have left already to find better shelter, but everyone – _everyone_ – has agreed that keeping their leader alive is the first priority. If only Clarke would realize it herself then everyone could get on with it without her constant whining.

He knows that this will be his last night in her bed. He knows that in another minute he will disentangle himself and go back to his post at her door. He knows that he will allow himself precious few seconds before he will gently guide her arms away, get out of her bed, dress, and pick up his gun.

But he is a selfish man. And for this moment he will be selfish, and enjoy this woman pressed against him.

When that small minute is up he follows through with his promise, and she protests even in sleep when he leaves her because she is cold again and has to curl in on herself.

But the next day they make some progress: Octavia teaches everyone how to break down what they have to make warmer coats, and everyone starts looking a little more like they’ll survive.

.

“ _Bellamy Blake_.”

He hears her voice from fifty feet, and Bellamy tightens his jaw in anticipation. He knew this would happen. He’s known since breakfast, when the decision was made, and he’s been preparing for her since after dinner, when people started heading back to their tents. That was over an hour ago. He would never admit to the nerves that started when he saw Clarke get up for bed twenty-odd minutes ago. The forest in front of him offers little assistance by way of defense.

“Who is this?”

Bellamy barely glances over his shoulder, mostly to see whether she’s being serious. She looks furious, and he doesn’t look away, like he should.

“That’s Elias Jones.”

She glares at him. “I know this is Elias Jones. So I ask again: _who is this?_ ”

Bellamy fights the urge to answer her with a petulant “ _Elias Jones_.” Her anger is sullied by her rosy cheeks and bright eyes. Instead he tamps down his private joke and sighs, turning his body to face her metaphorically and physically. “I’m not going to play ring-around-the-rosie with you Clarke. If you have something to say to me just say it.”

“ _Fine_ , I will.” She steps in close, almost as close as she was last night. “What is Elias Jones doing outside my tent and why did I just tell him that I made him a cup of tea before bed.”

Bellamy’s eyes stare into hers. His are expressionless, he knows, because he doesn’t know what to think. There are too many emotions now that need to be suppressed. “I think those are things you’re going to have to ask yourself, Princess.”

She expels an explosive breath. “Well you could at least try to answer one of them.”

Something must be tickling the corner of his mouth. A moth maybe. Maybe he needs a shave. For no other reason would he actually be almost smiling. “Because you like to make tea?”

It’s her damn beautiful face.

There is that frowny stare at him again, the two little creases between her eyebrows coming into focus in the limited light. She doesn’t think his joke is funny. It makes Bellamy realize he doesn’t have long before she’ll start making him regret it, and he clears his throat to attempt reason instead.

“It’s been over two weeks since the Grounders tried anything. I figured it was probably time to give someone else the night shift.”

She doesn’t look entirely convinced. Clarke glances over her shoulder before leaning even closer. “Is this about…is this about you falling asleep? Bellamy, it’s fine, _I’m fine_ —“

“ _No_.”

She knows better than to argue with him when he uses this tone of voice. She has a tone of her own. Sometimes their arguments are just a trial of who can get to this tone of voice first – who can throw down the hammer, or become the immovable wall, or…whatever other metaphor that means _nothing will convince me otherwise_. Bellamy has found his first tonight, and the deepening frown lines mark her brow in contrast to her flushed skin.

“ _Fine,_ ” she practically seethes, and when he sees the back of her it’s with a wave of hair, locked elbows, and balled fists. Elias Jones looks at Bellamy with raised eyebrows as if to ask: _What’s up with her?_

.

It’s three hours later when Bellamy is really wishing he’d paid better attention when making assignments. Yes, Jones is the best man besides him on duty, but that means he is left to patrol the south wall with Pippa Stinton, who - despite being nocturnal and having wicked good eyesight - is a pretty obnoxious gossip.

“I swear Fox is just working in the water group to keep up her tan. Whatever. Who is she trying to impress? It’s _winter_ , girl, ain’t nobody tan and ain’t nobody trying.”

Bellamy grits his teeth together to avoid saying something biting, like, _I couldn’t give less of a fuck_. He knows that Clarke would be able to bite her own tongue, and would probably have something nice to say that would make Pippa feel not only heard, but would gently guide them onto more neutral topics. Maybe.

A scream splits the night.

And Bellamy is instantly on his feet.

It takes all of the time for his shoes to touch the ground before he knows where the sound has come from, and he takes off toward Clarke’s tent at a sprint, his gun raised, his booming voice shouting orders that are instantly followed.

There is evidence of a camp coming awake as he goes. Flames are lit as he races through the tents. Terrified shrieks and panic-stricken questions are a tragic chorus.

_Clarke._

Bellamy wrenches the flap to Clarke’s tent open – and Jones is on top of her. His eyes widen, he sees red, and he bellows:

“ _Off of her Jones right now I will shoot!_ ”

The timber of his voice…were he not so deaf with rage he might have heard Pippa gasp from behind him, at the sound of his fury. All he knows are the backs of Jones’ hands as the guard raises them slowly.

“I –“ Never has Bellamy known Jones to sound so like a boy. “I didn’t do anything Bellamy!”

Bellamy is barely listening to him. Jones is standing awkwardly, moving to the side of Clarke’s bed so he can kneel on the ground, one leg at a time. He doesn’t turn around. Hands on the back of his head, he almost looks prepared to get shot. The most terrifying thing is: Bellamy’s trigger finger is begging to be his executioner.

It’s still pitch dark besides the shining stars, so Bellamy can only see the outline of her: sitting up in bed, ghostly pale, panting as if she’s just run miles. Clarke is rubbing at her throat as if ensuring the noose is no longer there.

“I just heard her screaming – s-same as you, Bellamy – and I came in and she was just, she was just flipping out. I didn’t _do anything_ …”

Clarke looks up at Bellamy, and her eyes confirm the truth. She nods, redundantly. “Bellamy I was just having a dream. Put down your gun.”

Bellamy is not so easily convinced. The sound of his own heart is still drumming in his ears; his neurons are still firing signs of _danger_ through his electrified skin. He lowers his weapon hesitantly, his hands still around the grip.

“There’s no one here trying to hurt you,” he shouts, demanding confirmation. Clarke shakes her head, her shoulders still making waves though she breathes now through her nose.

Everything within him tightens: his jaw, his lips, the force of his fear. It feels like the maps of nerves just beneath his skin are on fire, and no effort of his racing breaths will fan out of the flames. He still cannot calm down. “What the hell kind of dream were you having that made you scream like that?”

She looks directly into his eyes. The fact that she doesn’t explain the dream means that he already knows what it’s about.

_The first snow had fallen when they’d lit the first match to burn him…that man…the one who’d tried to kill her._

“Jones get up,” Bellamy barks. Jones does so, looking like he almost regrets the fact he has to turn around. Bellamy realizes his muscles are still tense around his gun, and he offers up his weapon to the man, handle first. “Go take the south wall with Stinton. Get Miller and Monroe up too. The Princess made a lot of noise tonight, and I want extra patrol until dawn. _Got it?_ ” Jones nods.

Pippa is still standing a few feet behind Bellamy. “What about you?” she asks.

Bellamy turns his head into profile, so he can glance back at the space between them without having to turn around. There are indistinct shapes behind the girl, as if half the camp is already outside Clarke’s tent and the other half is still busy trying to get there. “I’m staying here tonight. In fact, I’m staying here _every night_. If anyone’s got a problem with that they can bring it up with Jones.”

Silence meets his words. Jones walks past Bellamy without attempting eye contact, the sounds of his boots heavy and irregular as they fade into the night. Everyone else disperses after him in a diminishing encore of padding feet and indistinct voices. Relief trickles in through the spaces they vacate. It is slowly seeping through Bellamy’s nostrils like a cool, spring air.

Already he regrets yelling at Jones, and he knows he will have to apologize to the man later.

“You’re going to have to apologize to him later,” Clarke says.

It lets him know two things: one, that they are alone, and two, that he is in love with an insufferable woman.

Bellamy snorts, and then turns to find Jones’ fallen weapon on the ground. The safety is still on.

“ _I’m_ going to have to apologize,” Clarke is saying, almost to herself, “to the whole _camp_. I can’t believe I screamed like that, I can’t believe I—“

“Move over.”

Clarke looks up at him, and for a suspended moment her round eyes reflect the moonlight.

Then she skids back in the bed, until there is enough room for Bellamy to sit, lay down his weapon, and unlace his heavy boots. He takes off his jacket and drapes it over the shoes, and then he stretches out in the bed, tucking his feet under the heavy blankets and finding the edge of the pillow beneath his head.

Clarke doesn’t move from her seated position, looking down at him in her thick sleep shirt and pants, the moonlight behind her head casting her face into shadow.

“Clarke I’m not going to bite.”

He can hear the grin before he sees it. She relaxes against gravity, falling into the bed against his chest. Bellamy knew she would, and his outstretched arm curves around her shoulders. She rubs her cheek against his chest. Then she shivers. “It’s cold.”

Bellamy smiles, for the first time finding that he can nearly relax. “We should talk about that,” he notes. Clarke shivers again.

“Not tonight.”

Bellamy agrees. “We should talk about your dream instead.”

He doesn’t need the light to know how she tenses, ever so slightly. Her hand curls into a small fist against her chin and his ribs. Bellamy typically sleeps during the days, which means a lot of the more mundane diplomacy is decided without him, unless something is important enough to wake him up, or wait until late afternoon. He almost wonders how much he is missing, because he feels like she is hesitant to talk to him about something.

“Not tonight.”

Bellamy turns to look at the roof of her tent again, sensing an end to their conversation. The cold air that has finally made its way through his lungs and his muscles now finds his heart, and that latent feeling of dread he’s felt since he heard her scream comes to the forefront of his mind.

The fear he’s felt so many times now – that fear for her life – it might ruin him. He can’t remember ever being so scared as thinking she might be in danger.

His heart is a slowly exhausting presence inside his chest. He can feel her eyelashes against his shirt, moving up and down as she blinks, or closes her eyes. There are things they should talk about, things that need to be talked about, but he can’t think of anything more relevant than just holding her in his arms.

.


	3. but i'm a kid like everyone else

 

 

 

“Bellamy I need to wash my hair.”

The sun is high in the sky and Bellamy hasn’t slept restfully in days. Clarke looks far too restful for her own good.

“Can’t it wait?” he groans, ass already on his own bed, head already aching for the curve of his own pillow. Clarke has been insisting on being the little spoon lately, and it is making sleep or detached concentration more or less impossible these days.

“Look,” she argues, and already Bellamy knows he is too weak to fight her. “This morning I found a twig – a _twig_ – _in my hair._ Typically,” she frowns, “this is something I would have complete control over. A small walk down to the river, ten minutes in the water, done. But then this charming gentleman has the alarming sense to tell me—“ Clarke pauses, and gestures to the man standing beside her. Nathan Miller frowns beneath his beanie and looks at Bellamy to parrot the orders he was given:

“Not without Bellamy.”

Miller looks like he really didn’t sign up for this.

Bellamy pushes his face into his hand and sighs. “It’s cool Miller I got this.”

“Bellamy,” Miller mutters, either his voice or his body dropping to Bellamy’s seated height. With his leaden eyes closed it’s hard to tell. “You don’t. C’mon, I can take her. We’ve got Jasper, Nightlock and like ten others on the wall right now. It’s no big deal.”

Bellamy cracks one eye to look at his colleague. He doesn’t want to say yes, but both his limbic system and Clarke are begging him to give in. “Fine,” he grunts. “Take Monroe with you. And Raven. I don’t care what they think they have to do today I want them _with you_.”

Miller stands. “Yes sir.”

.

He meant to sleep after they left camp. It was the whole point of sending Miller, Monroe, and Raven in the first place.

But Bellamy feels uneasy, and sleep doesn’t come willingly. He finds himself frowning as he tries to keep his eyes closed, and then he finds himself sitting up, and then he finds himself getting dressed. It’s ironic that if he had simply gone with her he might feel more restful than he does now.

.

They can’t replicate the coffee they used to make on the Ark, but someone found a root that definitely acted as a caffeine-like stimulant when steeped in water. Impossibly, it tastes worse than what they had in space, but it does the job.

Bellamy prowls the wall, looking for signs of the foursome he sent out together. It shouldn’t take this long to wash her hair, he thinks. It’s twenty-odd minutes to the river depending on how quickly they walk, then Clarke said it would be a ten minute bath, and then they’d be back. It should take all inclusive less than an hour.

Clarke has the only watch in camp. They keep time with crude sundials and gut instincts. Bellamy’s gut instinct is telling him something is wrong.

“You can’t be serious.”

Octavia’s hand is pressing into his arm. It’s more a mental barrier than a physical one, but Bellamy’s hand tightens on the strap of his gun.

“O, they should be back by now.”

“You need to _chill_ , big brother. She’s fine.”

“No,” he insists, looking in the direction he wants to go. “Something’s not right.”

Octavia steps in closer, and ducks her head so as not to be overheard. “Bellamy you have to get some sleep. You look like crap, and you’re acting crazy.”

He looks at her, wondering what she sees. Are his eyes as dry as they feel? Does he look as pale as he thinks? “O…”

“ _Open the gates!_ ”

Bellamy and Octavia both whip their heads toward the noise, their conversation immediately broken.

The voice has come from beyond the wall.

_No._

People are scrambling already to pull the barrier apart, bodies overlapping to get the job done with urgency. Bellamy’s wide eyes identify three bodies immediately in the fissure. Monroe, Raven…and one in-between.

_Clarke—_

It isn’t Clarke.

“Get Bellamy!” Monroe is shouting. She and Raven stop inside the gates and drop the body they carry within the crudest sling Bellamy has ever seen. Miller lies limp and blue in the lips, Raven’s coat shoved against his torso in a crude pressure dressing.

“He’s lost a lot of blood, Bellamy,” Monroe gasps, bent at the waist to suck air into her lungs.

“ _Where’s Clarke_.”

Raven looks pale, standing shakily from her patient as new hands replace hers. She looks like she wants to cry but she’s too pissed off to let the tears fall. “They – they came out of nowhere Bellamy. It’s like they were waiting for us, it happened so quick.”

Miller coughs, and spits up blood.

“ _Where’s Clarke!_ ”

“Bellamy!” Raven shouts. “Don’t you get it! They took her! They ambushed us, the ripped open Miller, and they took her!”

Panic fills him like there is nothing else inside his body; like there are no organs, no bones, no blood.

_No. Not again._

“Bellamy,” Octavia is saying at his elbow, sounding like she is going to talk him out of suicide. “Let’s talk about this. We need a plan. You can’t just go tearing off into the woods again.”

“ _Like hell I can’t!_ ” Bellamy lunges for the gates, but Octavia and Miller and Monroe pull him back.

“ _Bellamy!_ ” Octavia shouts in his face. “Bellamy listen to me! Clarke is _gone!_ They knew what they were doing and we have to think about this!”

“ _You think about this!”_ Bellamy’s voice is raw as he shoves her off him, and she stumbles back a few steps. If she hadn’t been so used to gravity by now she might have fallen to the ground. Miller and Monroe drop his arms.

“You’re talking about going into _their_ territory!” Raven shouts, still breathless from her run. “To a place, we’ve never even been to. To a place we’re not welcome.”

Bellamy turns on her. “They took her for a reason. They didn’t kill her, they want her alive. They _want_ us to come after them and I am going to do that _right now!_ Now are you coming or not?”

“I’ll come with you.” Bellamy turns to see his sister volunteering.

“No,” Bellamy demands. “No, you’re staying here.”

“Bellamy, I can track!” she argues. “Can you?”

Bellamy’s expression twists.

“I’ll go with you.”

Jones is just behind him, when he is supposed to be sleeping. Bellamy looks him over quickly. “Jones I’m not going to ask you to do this.”

“That’s why I’m volunteering.”

There is a bated moment where Bellamy considers their options. “Look, Octavia, you and the others can sit here and formulate a plan. But I have to – I _have to follow them_ , and I have to go right now.”

She looks as if she really wants to argue, her lower lip drawn up as if to stop her mouth from opening.

“And someone has to take care of Miller until we get Clarke back. Please, O. _Please_.”

.

 _Please_.

They run.

Bellamy knows the way to the Grounders’ territory, because it’s the place where they’ve recovered the most bodies. Those trips have been the heaviest; dragging Roma, or John, or Sterling behind them, knowing that the trip is just to transport the weight of them.

The sickness in the pit of his stomach is growing. He wonders why it has come to this, and how it will end. Bellamy wonders what he is prepared to do should Clarke’s life be on the line.

 _Everything_.

A painful ache in his chest pulses in time with his pounding steps. He feels helpless guilt wondering where Clarke is, and wondering what is happening to her.

_It's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault._

Jones keeps a strong pace, moving ahead of him to track their way. It takes him a full half an hour to remember that Jones has been a relatively stable fixture in Clarke’s medical tent and not as a pupil; his labored, raspy breathing come from more than just fatigue, and it’s obvious he didn’t bring one of their inhalers. He would tell Jones to go back if he wasn’t such such a selfish man – if Clarke’s life wasn’t more important to him than his own, or…that of his friends.

“We’re getting close,” Jones breathes, his voice heavy with exertion.

The whistle of an arrow splits the path right in front of them, stopping them short because they feel the air cascading off it.

A voice cuts the air with the same efficiency of the arrow. “ _Stop!_ ”

Bellamy’s eyes go wide with despair. “ _Clarke!_ ” The word erupts from him on instinct. His eyes scour the trees for signs of her. “ _Clarke!”_

Jones makes a harsh noise. “Shut up!” he pleads, between rattling breaths. Bellamy knows Jones is right. He's not being careful. Bellamy looks to the side, and finds Jones’ gaze stuck resolutely on the ones who'd shot at them. Impossibly, Bellamy’s heart is beating faster than when they were moving full-sprint. The urge to shout her name again is high in his throat but for the moment it acts as a stone. She’s close. She has to be close.

Indistinct figues stands atop a slope, bodies in shadow to make them look like a series of six trees. Bellamy’s and Jones’ chests heave open and shut, out and in, expanding and contracting. They raise their arms automatically, their guns slung over their shoulders like lifeless third limbs.

_Clarke._

Three on the hill descend from the slope, leaving a neat row of three archers behind. Bellamy inhales a shaky, steadier breath.

“We didn’t come to fight you,” he shouts in earnest, his voice a gravely baritone. “We only came to get our friend back.”

The woman who leads the trio matches them in height, but she seems taller; it is either the imposing charcoal across her face, or the heavy fur padding across her shoulders, or the knife as long and thick as Bellamy’s arm across her back.

“You bring guns with you to keep from fighting?”

Bellamy swallows hard.

“We just want our friend.”

“We just want you all to die.”

Bellamy’s mind goes blank, as if his thoughts have all melted away.

“Is Clarke – what – _what have you done!_ ” The last part comes out like a scream. He sees Clarke again as he saw her before, knife to her throat, death in her eyes as terror infiltrates the will to live.

The woman not three feet from his face recoils, her lip curling in disgust. “Nothing!” she shouts back, with equal fervor. “Nothing that cannot still be done!”

There is a beast taking residence in his heart. He feels it there, manipulating the muscle, creating the tension that threatens to split the organ in two.

“We just came for our friend,” he repeats. The woman considers him more shrewdly now, lip still curled into a snarl, probing for what motivates his desperation. Her black eyes track him. She is comparing his desperation to desperations she holds within her own heart, and coming to her own conclusions.

“I would gut you where you stand,” she says. Bellamy feels the truth of her words in the place she wants to cut. He nearly repeats his plea. Maybe if he says it enough times they’ll realize it as a simple request. One person, just one.

“But that is not my decision to make. You come with us now.”

.

They walk for too long. It is so cold, but without the security of his gun against his back the sun burns into the back of his neck as he sweats under the ropes cutting into his wrists. Their steps become a mindless haze of motion. He tries to track their path on a mental map – north – north west – and prays Jones has a better sense of where they are. He feels lost already. He could not make it back to camp on his own.

On foot and on horseback the Grounders navigate their territory as if every mile has been their playground. Bellamy imagines Clarke being forced to navigate the same terrain. He cannot envision how they will return the three of them together, and the muscle of his heart constricts. Oh the abyss. The trees look like only trees to him now; blurs of evergreen he cannot identify.

“How much farther,” he grunts, looking up from the bottom of another hill’s incline. The Grounder’s leader looks at him sharply, as if she is not accustomed to being questioned, or as if she is used to subduing such questions quickly.

Her scowl fans apprehension under his skin, and he waits for the crack of her whip or the cut of her sword. It doesn’t come. The sting would have been some sort of relief, he realizes. The stress of continuing into the unknown with no sign of Clarke is wearing on him.

Her eyes look like black pools of cold blood. She turns her head, long dark braid swishing like a horse’s tail. She glances at Jones, and her expression withers. “We will walk into the night.”

Bellamy casts another sideways glance at Jones. The man is clearly struggling to keep up. His breaths are wet and heavy as they leave his pale lips, a grating stacatto their party is finding difficult to ignore because Jones has started making sounds like he is trying to die. Fear tangles into a ball behind the hollow of Bellamy’s throat, and he swallows against it’s scratchy texture like it’s some piece of raw wool. “We need a break,” he calls out. Jones releases a heavy sigh.

“No. No rest. We continue.”

Bellamy looks again at Jones. He thinks of Clarke. The muscles in his legs ache, the soles of his feet burn, and his skin is cold with sweat, soaking the roots of his hair.

The sun begins to set.

.

The far side of the hill holds the beginnings of life. On this eastern slope of the mountain, crops have been planted. With darkness’ descent he only sees the grim outlines of dormant things; trees without their leaves, rows of shrubs left for the frost, and lines of mounded dirt long frozen solid. When the moon is their lightsource he notices the way their boots crunch in the brittle layer of ice that coats the earth. Bellamy wishes desperately that this is lucky, that someone will be able to easily follow their tracks. He hopes Octavia is safe. Bellamy hopes that, if he should die, his sister will have the strength to recover the weight of his body.

His mouth is dry from dehydration, and he no longer looks at Jones. The sound of his friend’s rattling breaths are enough. It feels as if their group is accompanied by death now, and the passing of time is marked by wondering whether each shaky inhale will be the man’s last. He knows it has to end soon, either with Jones’ death or their destination. The anxiety is a constant, throbbing undercurrent to the despair of their journey.

Campfires become visible in the distance. At first the dots of glowing orange look like spots his eyes have conjured from delirium.

“Water,” Jones gasps, and Bellamy wonders how long Jones’s throat has been made of paper.

And the drawstring of Jones’ life snaps taught.

Bellamy’s eyes flash to their leader, whose shoulders hunch dangerously.

“ _Enough!_ ”

She swings in their direction, pent-up rage billowing into the fullness of her furs and armor.

“It's okay,” Bellamy says, holding his bound hands out toward Jones. The man’s face is ashen, even in moonlight. “It's okay, he's okay, he just needs water.”

“ _No!_ ” she shrieks. Her eyes are even blacker in the shadows from the stars.

“Please,” Jones begs.

“I grow tired of you.” He does not know who she is talking about, whether Jones or Bellamy or both of them or all of them. The leader looks toward her camp, still a mirage in the distance. And Bellamy knows with terrifying clarity that Jones won’t make it that far. He licks his lips.

“Just a bit of water. That's all.”

“That's all!” she mimics so shrilly as she rounds back toward them. “You have laid waste to our lands and then asked for assistance. You have murdered our people then asked for peace. You have waged war and request our protection! And now you demand _water?_ ” Her nostrils flare, her eyes are wide and wild, as if her fury has been breeding for hours, each mile they survived a personal attack on her and her people. She dismounts her horse. _No._ Her next words are ice.

“You have taken so much already.”

She unsheathes her weapon; even in starlight it is impossible to mistake the sound of her sword’s sharp edge against its case, and Bellamy’s eyes go wide.

“No –“ he starts to say. His fatigue is making him move so slowly. “No!”

It is over in an instant.

The woman screams – a primal, gutteral scream – and runs, lunging at Jones. Her sword sinks into his belly, bowing him toward his killer in some cruel mockery of an embrace. There is the sound of liquid hitting the ice-covered earth, and Bellamy’s gut lurches because the liquid is blood. Jones’ blood.

“No,” he whispers.

She throws his body off her like he is half his weight. Jones is not yet dead, but the life has left him. He falls to the earth, hands instinctually gliding toward his pulsating wound. His eyes are pale orbs in the darkness, and his breath shakes loose from his dry, parted lips as if someone is drawing them from him. It is Death, and it has been there all along.

“We move on.”

This woman – Jones’ murderer – flicks her weapon free of the blood which used to course through Jones’ veins. It still glistens with what was once Jones’ life. She does not sheath it, as if it is to be some stark reminder to all of them, to Death, who is pulling one final, lingering exhale from Jones’ dead lips.

The nerves that make up Bellamy’s skin impale one another. He recognizes his shock, his horror, and his fear. Jones did not deserved to die. He was only there because of Bellamy. He had volunteered so readily for this foolish mission, and now he is nothing but blood, and spilled organs, and dead flesh. The blood is congealing on the cold ground because of Bellamy’s recklessness.

Bellamy does not realize at first that the group has started moving, until Jones’ murderer is yelling at him again. Her mouth is moving, sound a dull ache to Bellamy’s ears because he cannot comprehend that life continues. He cannot quite understand that he must move on.

“ _Move!_ ” she screams. He thinks at any moment Jones’ will get up, off the ground, and give him a reassuring nod – _this way_ , he’ll say, and Bellamy will follow in his footsteps, making their prints blend into one shaky line towards Clarke…

The woman’s screams are but a muted noise in his head. He looks to the stars.

The enormity of space rushes into him in that moment. It is his being born in the sky, and falling from to the earth, and every series of accidents that happened to lead to those two things. It is coming back to Earth at all, and surviving when no one else had, and meeting Clarke, and…and everything. The pure implausibility of his existence is overwhelming to him for that one singular second of his life.

The woman in front of him screams again, and again Bellamy isn’t compelled by her words. They are too far removed from his soul.

“We will _kill_ you!” she shrieks. “We will kill you and the girl!”

 _No_ , he thinks, the mess of his thoughts reaching out to the idea of her – of Clarke. He could…he could protect Clarke. If nothing else he could try.

You must take another step, Bellamy.

He doesn't want to. The stars above his head are irresistable, and he thinks of how beautiful it would be to have them for a dying sight. Maybe Jones had found peace in the end.

“ _Move!”_

Move, Bellamy.

He does. Because if he is to die looking at the stars, he knows who he would want to share the vision with. It would be more honorable to die looking at them together.

.


End file.
